UNIONIZING ART

The recent announcement of a four million dollar building planned in New York to serve as a clearing house of American art, bids fair to forecast a new era in the development of painting in this country. The object of the League of American Artists who are sponsoring the proposed building is particularly interesting,--to institute a "business organization for the exclusive purpose of establishing a great public market place where the work of American artists may be sold." Studies and galleries will be provided to be let to individuals or groups to make the building self-supporting, and it is hoped in this way to counteract what has been termed an overemphasis placed at present on foreign work as such.

Unquestionably tremendous international publicity has been given to the purchase of such pictures as the "Blue Boy" at fabulous prices, and the steady piling up of art treasures by collecors like Frick, Altman, Johnson, and Huntington has made this country, especially since the war, a storehouse of famous paintings largely brought from abroad. As a result a flair for anything foreign developed and the effect on American art has been widespread. Individually, little can be done by American artists to stave off this influx of foreign-born art beyond all reason. No literary test can be-applied and there are no immigration laws to govern paintings.

Just such a situation is what the proposed Clearing House, it is to be hoped, will prevent, by establishing in the spirit of the mediaeval art guilds a national centre not only to develop art production, but to stabilize conditions so that a great art can be produced.